With the Greens and the Coalition joining forces to support changes to the Senate voting system — which could mean the end of micro-party senators such as Ms Lambie — there has been talk Mr Turnbull will call a double dissolution election.

Jacqui Lambie’s strange Facebook post.Source:Facebook

But Senator Lambie calls it a distraction and, unlike five of her crossbench colleagues, will not fight the proposed changes.

“The Greens have done a deal with the Liberal party to change the way Australians vote for the Senate,” she said today in a statement, and made the remarkable and unlikely claim Senator Di Natale wanted to be a minister in a Turnbull government.

“It’s more than likely the Liberals and the Greens will be preferencing each other in Tasmania. The Greens Leader wants to become a minister in the Turnbull government,” she said.

WHEN WE’RE HEADED TO THE POLLS

But speculation about when an election date is called is a real pain in the decision-making corridors.

Few factors irritate corporate thinking and complicate moves by public service chiefs like prolonged, unresolved debate over election timing.

And that speculation is rampant at the moment as Prime Minister Turnbull says he wants the government to complete its term late in the year but is privately yearning for a way to go early to voters.

No detailed research has found that poll uncertainty has ever been a significant economic dampener. There has been no election-effect GDP slump recorded, and investment is so weak at present any impact would be marginal.

But the anecdotal evidence is strong and it points to at least another layer of consideration in decision making, and spending caution from the board room to the family kitchen table.

The money still gets allocated, but an extra calculation has to be made as to whether the spending will be done now or delayed. The cash gets out, but might be deferred.

For example, the property business and individual home buyers must be wondering what an election might do to negative gearing.

So what are the options available to the Prime Minister, given PM’s go when they think they will win?

Here are the options:

An election later in the year is looking more likely. Picture: Mitch CameronSource:News Limited

DO A GILLARD

One of Julia Gillard’s oddest political decisions when Prime Minister was to announce in January, 2013, that the election would be held in September. She wasn’t around to run the government when September came around.

Mr Turnbull would not want to declare in February that August or September will host a general election, but he could make plain that the Budget will be held on time in May and other set pieces will be delivered as scheduled to at least give the impression the political calendar will not be changed.

DO A DOUBLE D

An election of all places in both houses would be bold but could deliver a Coalition-controlled Senate as well as a big Coalition majority in the House of Representatives. But it would also require a half-Senate election within 20 months and a general election soon after that for three significant electoral showdowns in three years.

But it also could mean Mr Turnbull goes to voters in June with a campaign based on excesses in trade union power, should the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation be knocked off. He believes this is a message voters are absorbing and will respond to.

STICK TO THE TIMETABLE

Mr Turnbull could abide by his public statements that the election will be held some time from August to October, which would be roughly according to schedule. No haste, no panic, just a methodical approach voters in a well-planned campaign.

The Budget could be presented in detail between May and polling day, and Labor could be forensically attacked.

This might seem the likely course, but little in Australian politics over the past six years has been methodical and well-planned.